Awwwe! Thanks guys! Its nice to be back. Jenny, Nice to see you are still here! So there is ANOTHER "vine guy" here now huh? LOL! You see, im not the only nutcase thats obsessed with vines, lol! Im not exactly sure what im going to be doing this summer, or where im going to be doing it, but you can rest assured that there will be vines involved. I already have 6 MF seeds that are now just sprouting, and 14 MG seeds that are all sprouted too, and ready to go in thier starter pots. =o) Girlsaylor, thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate that. I just try and pass along what ive learned myself here or just from my experiences. Im not sure yet if there is anything I want or need that I dont already have, but rest assured that if I do come across something I want and cant easily find, ill definately be asking YOU! =o) Greenfrank, Yep. That would be me. The MF vine was growing into my bedroom window. LOL! And yes those were my storm photos. We had WAY more than out fair share of sever thunderstorms here last summer, and most of those photos were takin one night when we got hit by 5 severe thunderstorms in a ROW, one right after the other. I still dont know yet exactly what my living situation is going to be, but you can rest assured, as I said earlier, that I WILL be gardening, and it WILL include vines! =o) I will definately keep you all posted on what im growin and how its doing. I can tell you my Clematis has already come back, as well as my Catmint, and some of my hosta's too. Theres other things just randomly coming up on my balcony now, but im not exactly sure what they are. I belive that some of them are Catnip seeds, and some are the lambs quarters. Last year I allowed a couple of lambs quaters "weeds" to live on my balcony, but I dont think I will be do ing that ever again, as they are PROLIFIC seeders just like Catnip , and then some. I havent done anything to my balcony yet, its still in the same sad, sorry, and VERY MESSY state its been in all winter. I havent gotten started on it yet because I am unsure if I will be living there this summer or not, and I dont want to start my garden there only to have to take it all down when/ if I move. If a move is going to take place, it probably will happen before the end of may though, so Ill still have a whole summer to get stuff going. Right now, im just starting things for my S/O's balcony. He is also interested in gardening too, and wants to do a very nice garden on his balcony. So well both be d oing that together. =o) Thanks again for all the kind words!

I keep pulling up the starts from that *^%*@+#&!@% tree all over my yard...front yard, side yard and back yard, and the tree isn't even in my yard! I got so sick of it's crap coming over my side of the fence that I cut a monster sized limb out of the tree this past Fall. Didn't want to risk a run-in with the #)%*()#^@! neighbor by using my gasoline powered pruning attachment, so I attacked it with my saw blade attachment on my 16 ft long pruning pole. Never have I had so much satisfaction with a saw before. Really worked out my frustration on that tree. Cut it in the most un-arborly fashion in hopes of killing the entire tree, but I doubt it will suffer that badly. Next I'm considering drilling a hole through the fence and into the tree and attaching a direct feed from a bottle of Round-Up, the really concentrated woody vine and brush killer kind. Yes, I'm that insane. Oh, and about the red bloated tick looking bugs that come with this tree...TonyK was right, you can't kill them with anything but soapy water and it has to be almost waterless soapy water or else they just keep on going. UGH!!!!!!!

Well, I put the smoked paprika to good use yesterday on some Deviled Eggs. The flavor was perfect, and the heat level was very balanced in combination with the egg and the acidity from the lemon juice, olive brine, and mustard. Notice the intensity of the color of my paprika on the left, as compared to the lifeless looking store-bought paprika on the right. I wasn't sure if the rest of my family would appreciate the heat, so I compromised and did half and half. They all loved 'em, though.

Zerotol was the treatment that many were using which is basically just concentrated hydrogen peroxide. Chris from Hallsons let me know that it ends up being the same concentration when ran through a hose end sprayer as straight from the bottle you can buy off the self in any grocery store. This past Spring I had some known potted hostas with nematodes and these I treated by drenching the soil with bottled hydrogen peroxide and had 100% success in the small to medium size pots and probably 90 to 95% in the larger pots. I treated when they first broke dormancy, before they leafed out. In the garden, I feel it greatly reduced the infestation but didn't eradicate them. Hydrogen peroxide does not kill nematodes in the leaf while NemaKill seems to claim that it does. That is what I'm interested in learning. I'm more interested in the treatment of Garden grown plants, than potted ones as I feel potted ones can be controlled with plain old hydrogen peroxide. Pandora - Once a hosta leafs out, the nematodes travel from .the soil around the crowns up the stems, them enter the leaves through the stomata on the underside of the leaf. They also will travel from leaf to leaf in the film of water during a rain storm or overhead watering. They remain there until the Fall then travel back to the soil around the crown to over-winter there and then start the cycle all over again. Removing infected leaves does reduce the population, but you can't get them all. Nematodes normally don't harm a plant unless severely infected and is more a cosmetic problem.